The New Shortcut Method

In addition to the rtcm method described in "I Ching, The Oracle of the Cosmic Way", we now have learned a shortcut method for getting quickly to the message intended by the Sage, in a given hexagram.

As some hexagrams are quite long, and contain many possibilities of interpretation, it can be confusing to find the specific message indicated for you, which may exist only in one paragraph, or even a specific line of the text. Although we recommend reading the entire commentary parts of the hexagram received, this variation of the rtcm is very helpful when you have little time, and when you have become somewhat familiar with the general theme of that hexagram.  

If you have received a hexagram without changing lines:

Start by identifying the page(s) containing the message. If you get a Yes Yes or Yes, Yes, Yes to the first page, ask whether The Judgment text is relevant, and then identify any specific paragraph(s) that are relevant on that page. Continue to ask about each page of the main text.

If you have received a hexagram with changing lines:

  Start by asking whether any parts of the main text of that hexagram (as, for example, The 

Judgment text, and/or any paragraphs) are also to be read before proceeding to the changing line(s) received. Then, first ask whether the line saying (the italicized text) is pertinent, before asking about the specific paragraph(s) relevant in the changing lines. After having written down the page numbers and paragraphs, ask the Sage about the best order in which to read the passages that were pointed out to you. Sometimes it is recommended to start reading the changing lines from the bottom up, at other times to start from the top down.

by Carol Anthony and Hanna Moog

As Water Flows Through Your Body

It is difficult to articulate experiences with the sage and helpers. It actually seems to diminish the natural flow of the experiences to concretize anything about it, like trying to explain how water flows through your body after drinking it, or something. Yet I’ve known these things to be true all my life.

by SG

The Stray Cat

In February, a family member called me on her cell phone at 11:30 at night. She is age 20, and was visiting with her family, who had gone to Key West, Florida, for a week's vacation. She had gone for a walk by herself and called me quite distressed, to say that she had got lost and couldn't find the street where the house was. She didn't know the number of the house, either, and the only telephone there was her mother's cell phone, which was shut off, since she had gone to sleep. She, Hanna and I all asked for Cosmic help. About 3/4 of an hour later, she called to say that right after our phone call, a stray cat showed up that she had patted that day near the house. She asked the cat to lead her back to the house, and it immediately began to go off, with her following. It went in a direction she was not going to take, but which led her through a narrow place into another street. Immediately she recognized the street and where the house was. She invited the cat to stay for the night and was patting it when she called back to say she had got back safely. You can imagine how we all felt.

Seeing the Great Man

The advice in the I Ching to "see the Great Man" took on new meanings through a number of experiences. One of the earliest was a short dream I had in 1997: 

In the dream I saw myself standing at the edge of a very steep slope. I saw a man running down the slope at high speed. I heard myself thinking, "Oh, how terrible! He’s going to get killed (because he’ll lose control)!" No sooner had I had that thought than I saw the man tumbling over and over, ever closer to the abyss. At that moment, I noticed that someone was standing on my left side. Then I heard a very firm voice saying, "activate the guardian angel!" As soon as those words had been spoken, I saw a man appearing right next to the tumbling man. He helped him back on his feet and led him safely back up the slope. 

This dream made me realize an old pattern of thinking: that when seeing someone in danger, I would see the situation as inevitably doomed, instead of asking for help from the invisible world. 

The dream was so crystal clear in its message that from then to now, whenever I see someone getting hurt or hurting himself, I inwardly ask for that help. It has taken away the old feeling of hopelessness and helplessness, and it also prevents me from rushing into a dangerous situation to help someone, only from the false feeling that "I have to do it all." 

Later, I was made to realize that it was really the Sage that had been standing beside me, and that it was also the Sage in the presence of the tumbling man that was activated by the call for help. The Sage was using the name "guardian angel" as a "handhold" (something preliminary) to enable me to understand the message in words that I was used to at that time.

By Hanna Moog

Unemployed Helpers

Do you at times see figures in your dreams that you would prefer not to meet? The following dream (in the year 2000) opened my eyes to a new way of viewing some of them: 

I found myself in a courtyard that was completely surrounded by tall apartment houses, the kind that were built on the outskirts of Frankfurt and Cologne in the 1960s to offer low rent housing for socially disadvantaged people. No ray of sunshine fell into the courtyard where I stood, which gave me the feeling of being closed-in on all sides. Then I noticed some teenagers and people in their early twenties standing idly in some of the back doorways. I clearly felt this was not a good place to be—"you never know what they’re up to…."

I woke up with a sigh of relief. However, the dream left such an imprint that I wanted to understand it better. By that time, Carol and I regularly used the Retrospective-Three-Coin-Method (described in I Ching, The Oracle of the Cosmic Way) to clarify dreams with the help of the Sage. With its help I found that these suspicious looking people were actually "unemployed Helpers" that I had never thought to ask for help. They are there all the time, only waiting to be asked. That they appeared as loiterers was due to my perception that I could not look to them for help. 
In fact, one of them was the Sage, whose multifold abilities I had limited by viewing it as only answering my questions. I had overlooked the fact that the Sage could also help me come up with the right questions. For this, I merely have to ask it for its help.

By Hanna Moog